enter into the militia: thus, Brigadier Calleja, (afterwards General, Viceroy, and Conde de Calderon,) who, in 1794, was entrusted with the organization of that body, in the Provincias Internas, introduced a regulation, by which, in every town and village,[1] the Captain of the militia of the place (however ill-qualified for the situation in every other respect) became perpetual Alcalde; the first and second lieutenants, Regidores; and the first serjeant, Procurador (or legal adviser) to the corporation, thus singularly formed; with due provision for replacing them, when absent, by the next in rank, according to military gradation. By this absurd system, in these distant provinces, where the Municipalities were the only tribunals for the decision of all petty disputes, a corporal, or even a private, in the absence of his superiors, was entrusted with the administration of justice, in villages inhabited by fifty or sixty respectable proprietors, whose only remedy against the absurdities, into which his ignorance might betray him,[2] was an appeal to the governor of the Province, or to the Audiencia of Chĭhūāhuă, which
- ↑ Vide the Memorial presented to the Cortes of Cadiz, in 1811, by Mr. Ramos Arizpe, deputy for the province of Cohahuila.
- ↑ One can hardly credit the possibility of so singular an instance of oppression, and that affecting not an individual, but four whole Provinces, (Cohahuila, New Leon, Santander, and Texas;) but I have had opportunities of ascertaining the correctness of the statements given by Mr. Ramos Arizpe on the subject, and know that they may be depended upon.
